Storm Slams Northeast; Power, Travel Disrupted

A storm plastered the Northeast with heavy, wet snow Monday, stranding drivers and airline passengers, knocking out power and closing schools from Pennsylvania to New Hampshire.

Up to 18 inches of snow were forecast in places.

“I guess Punxsutawney Phil wasn’t wrong,” John Sullivan said as he buttoned up his overcoat against the swirling snow in Springfield, Mass. A week earlier, the Pennsylvania groundhog saw his shadow, which legend says means six more weeks of winter.

Bradley International Airport near Hartford, Conn., was closed Monday afternoon and was expected to reopen some time today. Continental Airlines canceled about 70 flights at Newark International Airport in New Jersey and all flights were delayed up to an hour.

The fat, wet flakes pulled down tree limbs and power lines, and Pennsylvania’s PECO Energy Co. reported 51,000 customers lost service.

In Connecticut, 10,275 homes were without power early Monday evening.

Some of the heaviest afternoon snowfall came in northwestern New Jersey, where more than a foot had fallen by evening.

Roughly 2,500 homes in the northern and central parts of the state were without power early Monday evening because of downed power lines, and another 4,000 northwestern New Jersey homes were without power for at least an hour.

By early afternoon, snowplow crews had trouble keeping the Pennsylvania Turnpike clear in eastern Pennsylvania because the snow was falling so fast, and three jackknifed tractor-trailers blocked the highway near Reading.

Tow trucks from Crawford’s Auto Center in Downingtown, Pa., outside Philadelphia, were busy all morning pulling vehicles out of ditches. Dispatcher Joey Bement said she had looked out her window during the morning and told herself: “It’s going to be a long day.”

In North Adams, Mass., where roads are hilly and many of the 9,000 residents are older, Mayor John Barrett III shut the whole community down early in the day. By midafternoon, snow was falling at a rate of an inch per hour.

“We sent everybody home. We’re telling the businesses to close down and go home,” Barrett said. “We told them we couldn’t guarantee they’d get home at the end of the day.”

The storm was welcomed by ski resort operators in New Hampshire, where up to a foot of snow fell in the southwestern part of the state by evening.

“We’re off to one of the best starts ever,” said Alice Pearce, executive director of the trade group Ski New Hampshire.

Weather forecasts called for 3 to 5 inches in New York City, but anywhere from two to three times that to the north and west. Snow mixed with rain left up to 8 inches of slush in places.

Louis Alberghetti, 29, slipped in slush on his way to a White Plains, N.Y., electronics store, where he planned to look at dish antenna systems.

“Can’t go out anymore. Might as well watch 500 channels,” he said.